November 30, 2009

"Poolbeg" is a handy euphemism for Ringsend and Sandymount. It is noteworthy that "Poolbeg" has apparently been targeted for degradation by Dublin City Council & DDDA, with Ringsend also targeted for abuse by the Catholic Church. A pedophile priest was transferred to working class Ringsend via working class Donnycarney after deep initiations in Wicklow.

The hierarchies of these organisations seem to practice a contempt for their flocks. They flock the flock.

Institutions such as Dublin Port Company, Dublin City Council, Dublin Developers Autocracy DDDA, EPA and Bord Pleanala are apparently openly acknowledged to be stacked with friends-of-friends of Barftholemew. DCC and Zoe Developments have even used the same lawyer (absolutely legally of course). DCC's 'independent' adviser has a former employee placed onto the board of Bord Pleanala. ETC.

With some exceptions the walls of obstructionism, stunts, spin and possibly even outright lies, red herring 'reports' and legal threats are fronted by local politicians.

___________________

Bad Joke Of The Day: Enron's auditors Arthur Anderson Consulting have not been rebranded by the hierarchy as Assenture or Assenter.

A conservative estimate places taxpayer liabilities for shell games in "Poolbeg" at €950 Million.

Taxpayer liabilities for the "Fabrizia" site owned by Zoe Developments are a Fianna Fail state secret. Zoe Developments and a myriad of associated companies are in the hole for €2 billion to €4 billion. So let's guess the taxpayer-NAMA-liability for Fabrizia is only €200 Million.

The sale of the publicly owned Glass Bottle Site to a private company cost the taxpayers €300 Million.

Apparently Dublin City Council's secret put-or-pay contract with New Jersey's Covanta, in effective cooperation with an at best supine Minister, is being used to threaten taxpayers with a €450 Million taxpayer liability for the incinerator.

Add the numbers up anyway you like. To be fully professional you must use NAMA's totally accurate off-balance-sheet SPiV accounting, a secret methodology developed by Enron's Special Purpose Entities. The total then becomes whatever you like. Or exactly €950 Million. The independent auditors at Arthur Anderson Consulting will confirm this.

The United States's EPA decides projects by sticking $8 million into a spreadsheet for each life sacrificed for the common good. For Poolbeg you can reach an eye-candy €999.99 Million by adding on $8 million for each life lost to the Waste-To-Toxins incinerator.

___________________

Bad Joke Of The Day: Enron's auditors Arthur Anderson Consulting have not been rebranded by the hierarchy as Assenture or Assenter.

The Government is shortly to announce the membership of the board of Nama. If they are not up to the job, the consequences for Ireland are potentially cataclysmic.

Honourable mentions include:

Howlin

Dempsey

Martin Cullen,

Dick Roche

John Gormley

FitzPatrick

Bradshaw

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Docklands disaster serves as warning on Nama

Mon, Nov 30, 2009

BUSINESS OPINION: Having two Anglo Irish directors on the docklands authority board was a big mistake, writes JOHN McMANUS

IT’S A measure of how conditioned we’ve become to failure and incompetence in public life that the revelation by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) that it has blown €213 million of taxpayers’ money is met in the most part by weary shrugs and eye-rolling.

The decision to publish the DDDA accounts on the same day as the Murphy report into the Catholic Church’s cover-up of child abuse in Dublin was released only adds to the cynicism.

Some might argue it is the only clever thing the Government has done with respect to the authority in years. But of course it’s not really clever, it’s just nauseating.

When confronted with the enormity of the disaster that is the authority, the impulse is to start calling for a public inquiry and to send in the Director of Corporate Enforcement.

There would doubtless be much for the director or any other investigator to ponder at the authority.

First and foremost is the way in which the organisation became involved in the Glass Bottle Site deal and is now being set up to be the patsy for the whole thing. It has gone from being some sort of junior partner to the prime target of the raft of litigation surrounding the collapse of the billion-euro project.

This leads of course to what is arguably the bigger scandal: how the authority was granted and allowed to exercise draconian planning powers without anyone bothering to check if they were legal or at least bullet-proofing them against legal challenge.

Instead, following a successful challenge to one of its rulings, the docklands authority has been found to have been acting outside its powers and facing all sorts of litigation. The only saving grace is that presumably the rights to the litigation will pass to the National Asset Management Agency (Nama), along with the bankrupt developments in question.

But in truth, we probably don’t need an inquiry to tell us what went wrong at the authority, although it would be nice to see the perpetrators of this piece of financial and social vandalism held to account.

We already have an explanation and it’s to be found in the Chinese proverb about the inevitability of getting up with fleas if you lie down with dogs.

With hindsight, what else might you have expected if you put people like Seán FitzPatrick and Lar Bradshaw on the board of a State company with carte blanche to develop some of the State’s most valuable real estate?

It was a gamble to appoint FitzPatrick in particular. He brought with him drive, dealmaking, contacts and, above all, ambition. These are not qualities usually associated with State agencies and held out the prospect of something special happening in the docks.

It is now apparent that the same blind spots and personal failings that caused so much damage to Anglo Irish Bank wreaked havoc at the docklands authority.

If you follow this chain of argument, the real question is, who appointed him and his fellow board members and why?

Step forward the Minister for the Environment and the Government. For the record, Bradshaw was appointed in May 1997 by Brendan Howlin, while FitzPatrick was appointed the following year by Noel Dempsey. FitzPatrick replaced Jim Lacey, who resigned over the scandal at National Irish Bank.

Howlin and Dempsey can argue that it was unreasonable to expect them to see the danger inherent in appointing FitzPatrick.

It’s a fair point, although the truth is that FitzPatrick had the whiff of sulphur about him back then too, but nobody cared because he was so successful.

But even if you cut Howlin and Dempsey some slack over the initial appointments, there is nowhere for Dempsey or his successors – Martin Cullen, Dick Roche and John Gormley – to hide over the appointment by FitzPatrick of Bradshaw to the board of Anglo in 2004 (on Roche’s watch).

The failure of successive Ministers to question the sense of having two Anglo directors on the board of the docklands authority is the crucial mistake. It was the equivalent of handing over the keys to a toyshop to a couple of children.

The error appears to have been compounded by not appointing other directors with the judgment or stature to rein in Bradshaw and FitzPatrick. The failure to address this problem put the authority in a different league from most other State agencies and boards, populated as they are with unqualified placemen and other beneficiaries of political patronage.

There are two broad explanations that can be put on this, neither very palatable. The first is that the Ministers were so incompetent, naive or whatever that they did not see the danger.

The other is that they were alive to the problem, but did nothing for some reason, political expediency being the most likely.

The Government is shortly to announce the membership of the board of Nama. If they are not up to the job, the consequences for Ireland are potentially cataclysmic. They had better do it right this time.

November 27, 2009

Guess why the proposed Poolbeg Incinerator is located beside a shipping dock?

DCC says the ships in its montages are for exporting ash. So based on DCC's history of truthfullness about their third world Sandymount Dump obviously there's a strong possibility of a lie spin.

Contracts in New Jersey are serious business. The only way Dublin City Council can meet the conditions of the secret and thus possibly reckless contract they signed with New Jersey's Covanta outfit is by importing waste. Otherwise the public servants or the IMF will possibly threaten to screwextort liberate a Ringsend Glass Bottle sized four hundred and fifty million Euro penalty from taxpayers (25 years at €18 million per year). And Pontious Pilate in The Custom House can hardly intervene in planning as he conveniently claims to be 'restricted by the legislation' - which his Green-FF patriots control.

Irish Times: The Irish Waste Management Association report said a facility with a capacity of 250,000 to 300,000 tonnes per annum would be more than adequate to meet Dublin’s requirements until at least 2037.

Minister for the Environment John Gormley said this afternoon he was unable to intervene in planning decisions.

Even the gloriously clean Swedes have to import waste to keep incinerators financially above water. Incinerators in Germany are so underfed that they have imported toxic waste from the mafia controlled incinerators in Southern Italy (not from New Jersey mafia). Maybe you should avoid Mozzarella Cheese.

The bosses of all the incinerators in the southern Italian region were arrested in a swoop. According to The Rutgers Law Center Covanta has been fined for toxins releases at all of its NJ incinerators. The Covanta incinerators paid token fines, far less than a Covanta executive's million dollar bonus.

Draw your own conclusions from this apparent strong-arm attempt by the hierarchy at Dublin City Council:

Dublin City Council has insisted the project will go ahead, warning that if it pulls out of a contract with private companies Covanta and DONG to develop the facility the taxpayer will lose millions of euro in a breach of contract lawsuit.

Strike or no strike, DCC's public-servants' pensions are protected from any penalties which may be caused by the curious contract.

There is no clause in the strong-armed contract to pay for health services - its estimated incinerators cause a significant number of premature deaths [100,000 man-years of lost life each 15 years].

The fast movers in Dublin City Council are now in on DDDA's good-day-to-bury-bad-news game. With the airwaves full of stories of child rape the hierarchy of Dublin City Council has announced that the crew from New Jersey will start building the Poolbeg Incinerator on December 14, 2009.

Mr John Gormley is washing his hands and acting like the disgraced Archbishops - doing nothing.

November 25, 2009

When will Dublin Docklands Developers Autocracy finally choose to publish the DDDA "Accounts" for 2008?

DDDA is only a few hundred days late. Without the parish's acknowledged governance expert on-board as a face-saver for Green-FF they could obstruct forever.

Will the cooked accounts good news be published in the week with all of the following?

Reports on Systemic Rape of young boys by The Christian Brothers?

Cork & Galway Washed Away by Unprecedented Floods?

X-Factor Kicks Out Jedward?

The Hand of Frog Thierry Henry?

250,000 Gardai, Teachers and Nurses on Strike [because DDDA and NAMA have stolen their pay rises for reasons of systemic importance]?

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UPDATE-1.NOVEMBER 26, 2009.

After delaying for hundreds of days why did DDDA carefully choose November 26, 2009, to publish its allegedly accurate accounts for Dec 30, 2008? This is a job that credible €100 Billion corporations like HP or IBM can do 3 weeks after the financial year closes.

The fast movers in Dublin City Council are now in on DDDA's good-day-to-bury-bad-news game. With the airwaves full of stories of child rape the hierarchy of Dublin City Council has announced that the crew from New Jersey will start building the Poolbeg Incinerator on December 14, 2009.

Mr John Gormley is washing his hands and acting like the disgraced Archbishops - doing nothing.

DDDA knows you can't just steal a public beach. First you have to designate it to be a sports field. Nobody can contest the worthiness of sports fields in socially deprived areas. Especially not the patriotic property repurbishmenters who move house from Ailesbury Road to Paris with €300 million or to Geneva with €100 million.

Once upon a time AIB curiously came into possession of a formerly public beach in Sandymount which AIB spinmeisters labelled as a 'sports pitch'. The now bankrupt banksters at AIB 'sold' the sports pitch in 1999 to a now bankrupt property speculator, financed by Ulster Bank. This now privately owned site on the Sandymount Foreshore is known as 'Fabrizia'. DDDA's latest chairman used to work for Ulster Bank and apparently this formal relationship has officially stopped. NAMA has rescued the AIB bank and will rescue a new improved Fabrizia speculator with your tax money (closing hospitals). Bankrupt DDDA recently transferred millions to the bankrupt developer to 'buy' flats for 'social housing' beside Anglo-Irish banks illegal HQ on the Liffey.

With legalised inducements in place for local councillors and officials the polluted AIB sports field on Sandymount Strand was magically rezoned for shoebox high-rises. In DDDA's case they can just issue a section-25 planning diktat - councillors who 'support' DDDA can swap social housing for votes.

DDDA is now apparently trying to grab rights to public lands being used by a local GAA Club. This issue was highlighted at pubic meetings held by Sandymount & Merrion Residents Association in Sandymount in 2008. DDDA hides its schemes behind a wall of obstructionism, possibly under instructions from the hidden controllers of Anglo-Irish Bank.

The Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) has been warned that its draft development plan for the Poolbeg area contains an unfair "attempt to interfere with" a local GAA club's property.

Clanna Gael Fontenoy's pitches border the controversial Irish Glass Bottle (IGB) site which was bought for €412m by the DDDA, property investor Derek Quinlan and developer Bernard McNamara and is now said to be worth just €60m.

The club said: "It is apparent that there are four secondary and one primary pedestrian route proposed over the club's leasehold land. This is an impermissible attempt to interfere with the club's property interests. The club is deeply concerned about such a proposal."

It said the DDDA does not appear to have given "sufficient recognition to the property interests that the club has in the lands" and said it was "noteworthy" that the photograph of Sean Moore Park "has the club's clubhouse airbrushed out and its existence removed and replaced with extensive green foliage".

The club has a 99-year lease on lands at Sean Moore Road from Dublin City Council and also has land measuring more than 2.5 acres alongside the boundary of the IGB site.

"Developers of the lands beside the club… should not be misled into believing that future residents of any proposed development will be able to use the club's playing fields as part of the general green field site," they said.

November 16, 2009

The autocracy says it got involved at the €450 million IGB site because members of the local community had urged it to.

- Example of DDDA Bare-Faced 'Spin'. Published Whilst 2008 Accounts Are Being Cooked to Hide Write-off of €450 Million.

The DDDA autocracy seems to be allowed to hide behind the Feedom of Information act whilst publishing spin about what they are really scheming up. The DDDA's 2008 accounts would appear to be extremely shady as they have now been cooking for a full eleven months! All with a "Governance Expert" as Chairman in charge of this example of information obstruction! Credible companies publish truthful accounts two weeks after the quarter closes.

With the same unseen masters it's likely NAMA will operate to the same high governance standards as DDDA: the Special Purpose Vehicle designed to cook the national accounts, Enron-style, is a strong indicator that the Fools & Crooks culture will continue, this time rigging house prices for a generation and emptying little-peoples' pockets to the tune of €99.9 Billion.

DDDAs IGB Glass Bottle Site Lies On Sandymount Strand

DDDA's shell game on Sandymount Strand at the IGB and Fabrizia sites will directly cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of Euro - shutting hospital wards, cutting medicines, cutting medical personnel pay - whilst their buddies plan to pollute the environment with the Poolbeg Incinerator, shortening life expectancy across Dublin.

In Business This Week(November 6th), in an article headed “Boom-time deal in the docklands turns sour”, it is stated that: “The authority [the DDDA] for its part, says it got involved because members of the local community had urged it to, and that it had acquired the minimum stake that would prevent it being outvoted on key decisions.”

Similar statements appear in the forewords of the Dublin Docklands masterplan and the draft section 25 Poolbeg planning scheme of 2008 signed by Donal O’Connor, as chairman.

As many of your readers will be aware, political constituency boundaries do not necessarily coincide with geographical boundaries. Counties and districts are often split. The IGB and Fabrizia sites lie in the geographical location of Sandymount, being part of the hazardous waste dump created on Sandymount Strand. Members of the Docklands Council were chosen on the basis of political, not geographical, boundaries.

While representatives from adjoining communities and other areas were appointed to the Docklands Council and may or may not have made such a request, we were not at any time, prior to 2008, party to discussions, requests or decisions relating to any part of the area. We most decidedly did not urge the dockland authority to become involved in the acquisition of the IGB site or in Becbay.

In 2008, at meetings of a special interest group set up by the DDDA, we made at least two verbal requests for a copy of the relevant Docklands Council minutes at which, it is claimed, members of the council asked or urged authority members to become involved in Becbay. We have not received it.

November 5, 2009

In 2007 Dublin City Council signed a secret contract with a New Jersey outfit called Covanta.
This secret contract was signed by unelected officials who saw fit to do a back-room deal with US citizens and saw fit to exclude the people of Ireland.

As expected DCC is now using this "we are where we are" contract to blackmail and to extort the residents of Ireland. The 2007 yes-man in the DCC management position has retired on a secret and presumably lucrative public-service-pension to be replaced by the newest yes-man, a yes-man who again seems to ignore the voters of Dublin City and their elected councillors and TDs.

Draw your own conclusions from this apparent extortion attempt by the hierarchy at Dublin City Council:

Dublin City Council has insisted the project will go ahead, warning that if it pulls out of a contract with private companies Covanta and DONG to develop the facility the taxpayer will lose millions of euro in a breach of contract lawsuit.

The public-servants' pensions are protected from any penalties which may be caused by the curious contract.

There is no clause in the contract to pay for health services - its estimated incinerators cause a significant number of premature deaths [100,000 man-years of lost life each 15 years].

__________

Does the Incineration Industry in Ireland pay any ex-EPA Ireland Directors for "consulting"?

How many incineration-industry-employees have been positioned into EPA-Ireland?

Payments to political parties in the USA by Covanta employees are disclosed on USA websites - the German Chemical Industry Lobby in Brussels ensures there is no similar disclosure in Europe.

Covanta
hides behind an offshore legal firewall in Luxembourg. Covanta has
been fined for dioxins releases at ALL of its incinerators in one US
state and for literally thousands of other pollution releases.

Mr McNamara is now suing the DDDA because they apparently promised to give him planning permission ('fast track section-25 permission' bypassing Bord Pleanála' to keep out the little people). If true this is more evidence of DDDA's contempt for the taxpayers of Dublin.

Yvonne Farrell of Grafton Architects is on DDDA's board. Her business partner is the sister of Bernard McNamara.

"I wrote to the Chair of the Authority in August 2009 re-affirming my continued support for the Authority’s work".

This was shortly after a possibly scapegoated-CEO was fired by DDDA's alleged governance expert. This alleged governance expert is the marriage partner of the PD's failed leader - a failed party which promotes the PD's Poolbeg-Manhattan money-racket.

If DDDA did promise planning permission - and why doubt Mr McNamara - then DDDA did act illegally (ultra vires in the insiders special language). DDDA's record includes giving illegal or ultra vires planning permission to its masters in Anglo Irish Bank for a glorious Anglo HQ just a stone's throw from Sheriff Street.

The real question is who is in the secret cartel giving directions behind the scenes to DDDA, NAMA, Anglo-Irish Bank, Green-FF and the rest of the patriots.

Hint: Follow the NAMA money bailouts disguised in Enron best-practice Special Purpose Entities designed to cook the accounts of Ireland.

DDDA will cease to exist after Green-FF sets up NAMA to complete their masterpiece of treason.

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DDDA Footnotes:

"Affordable Housing" is suddenly getting high class billing on DDDAs website. DDDA or its unseen masters appoints Councillors to its opaque governing
structure. How many Councillors has DDDA bought using the Tammany Hall promise of votes for cheap housing?

€412m site now valued at €60m and subject of major court case

DEVELOPER Bernard McNamara is
suing the Dublin Docklands Development Authority for €108.4m over the
€412m purchase of the Irish Glass Bottle site.In a legal action
that will bring together some of the key players at the height of the
property boom, the builder claims he had no interest in buying the site
because he believed it was not possible to generate a profit from it.Mr McNamara bought the site with financier Derek Quinlan and the DDDA in 2006, at the height of the property boom, for €412m. It is now believed to be valued at just €60m.Mr McNamara admitted yesterday that he is facing potential claims of more than €108m over a deal to buy the site.He
revealed in court affidavits how he was approached by the Dublin
Docklands Development Authority three years ago to enter into a joint
venture with the state body to buy the site which has been mired in
controversy.Mr McNamara says that he was approached by Paul
Maloney, the former chief executive of the DDDA, in October 2006 to
jointly bid for the site.

He claims he had no interest in the
venture until certain representations about the site, including an
alleged assurance that the DDDA could "fast-track" any planning
permission to develop the Dublin 4 land.

However, last year the
High Court ruled that the agency had acted outside of its powers by
fast-tracking permission for another docklands development at North
Wall Quay.Now Mr McNamara has brought a legal action against the DDDA over the Irish Glass Bottle site purchase.Agreement

He claims the DDDA was never entitled to enter into a November 2006 agreement involving him (McNamara) and Mr Quinlan.

Following
last year's High court ruling, Mr McNamara alleges that the DDDA is now
unable to perform its obligations and had therefore frustrated the
ability of Mr McNamara and others to develop the site, meaning very
substantial losses for them.

Mr McNamara claims he faces
potential claims totalling €108m on foot of loans raised from Anglo
Irish Bank and private investors with Davy Property Holdings Ltd, and
on the basis of guarantees given by him related to those loans.

The
proceedings by Mr McNamara, of Ailesbury Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin, and
his company Donatex Ltd, of Pembroke Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin, were
admitted to the Commercial Court yesterday.In his case, Mr
McNamara claims the Dublin Port Company and South Wharf plc had in
September 2006 advertised the site for sale by tender. It was the largest site to become available for development in Dublin 4 for years, he said.He claims then DDDA chief executive Paul Maloney had approached him a month later about becoming involved.He
claims Mr Maloney had meetings with him and made several
representations, including that the DDDA could procure a route for the
Luas to the bottle site.

He also claims he was promised that the
DDDA, as the planning authority for the area, could "fast-track" any
application for permission for development without the planning risk of
third-party observations or An Bord Pleanala appeals.

Mr McNamara
claims that , as a result of such representations, he later indicated
he would be prepared to consider a joint bid with the DDDA for the
site. Becbay Ltd was later incorporated and used by himself and the
DDDA to bid for the site.

Mempal Ltd, a company controlled by developer Derek Quinlan, also later acquired an interest in Becbay. In late January 2007, Becbay's tender was accepted and it acquired the site for €412m, with funds from various sources.

The funds included €288m from Anglo Irish Bank -- later converted into a joint facility provided by Anglo and Allied Irish Bank.

Continuing the tale of the alleged and possible €450 million fraud or simple honest mistakes at the Glass Bottle Site in Ringsend. The path is now clear to use NAMA to take €450 Million from taxpayers.

The latest caper is the EPA Director's rubber stamp for the speculators at the Glass Bottle Site on the dump in Ringsend. These public employees also politically approved the toxic Poolbeg Incinerator, ignoring science (and their gagged scientist employees?) and claiming community health assessments are not their job. EPAs other fine work liberated chromium six into Cork Harbour.

Arupis on the board of Dublin Developers Autocracy (DDDA). Arup worked with DDDA, Becbay and others to supposedly perform some sort of undocumented environmental cleanup at the toxic Ringsend site. Another €30 million of taxpayer cash was wasted on this absurdity (literally exporting the city dump to Germany without documentation).

A former EPA scientist-employee apparently contests the cleanup and maintains the site is polluted (methane from the 40 year old dump).

Before entering the cronyist Green-FF government The Green Party condemned the EPA's Directors. Now with a green as Environment
Minister the greens are destroying the cause of environmentalism in Ireland and doing exactly nothing about the mighty fine
pollution agency's directors.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the statutory body set up to oversee European environmental law, has ruled that the company has properly cleaned up contaminants on the IGB site. In the jargon of the planners, Becbay will be able to surrender its licence at the IGB site.

Public files at the EPA show the steps taken by Becbay and its contractor, Arup Consulting, to clean the site. Soils were shipped from the site to two decontamination facilities in Germany for disposal, the EPA files show.

Older residents knew that parts of the IGB site were used as a main Dublin tip head for the city's waste. Dublin Corporation maps, say the developers, indicate most of the IGB site was reclaimed from Dublin Bay before 1965, with the southern part of the site reclaimed around 1966.

Dublin city operated a landfill, dumping waste in a layer of up to six metres at Ringsend. For four decades up to its closure in 1978, methane-producing household waste was dumped on the tip that included part of the IGB site.

In late July this year, the EPA received a submission from a member of the public, Michael Doak, who opposed the surrender of the licence to Becbay. It is rare for the EPA to receive any public comments but the submission was unusual for another reason too: Doak, though he had not worked on the IGB site, was a former EPA inspector. His claims that high levels of methane remained on the site were, however, dismissed.

The ruling by the EPA board paves the way for Becbay to apply for planning permission to build on the site. But the continuing role of the taxpayer, through the DDDA, in one of the most expensive strips of development land in Ireland guarantees that the IGB site will remain the focus of considerable public scrutiny.